<p>“Superscoring” is just a lousy term. I wish they had come up with something better. And, I find it very annoying that there is nothing explaining what scores they have used in this table. Is it the highest , using the most favorable combination method? That’s the scores that students would generally want, but does it make sense for the CB to report that? It would certainly be interesting to see all the scores and then the superscored scores.</p>
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<p>I do not see a problem with it. What do you dislike about the term?</p>
<p>Here’s my argument as to one of the reasons SAT 1 is blunt and definitely blunter than it once was. Comment away at will, droogies!
Back in the day, most folks, regardless of income and class, took the SATs once, without prep. There weren’t any tutors, there weren’t many prep books. (As a side note - of the roughly 20 folks I polled - all took the SATs with little or no prep in the 70s. They lived all over the country and went to all sorts of schools and have all sorts of family incomes.)
Now, there is a huge range of prep and retesting. This doesn’t mean, of course, that the kids scoring very high (2300+ for me) aren’t smart. But it does mean that some of them had much more of a retest and study boost. Is a 2290 from an inner-city kid who lives in a car, holds down a job and studied as best he/she could from the one 10 year old copy of the Blue Book in the library really indicative of a lesser ability than then 2300 from a kid from an upper class town who took a prep course, and had a tutor and took the SATs five times? I think not. Replace those scores with 1000 and 2400 and , of course, it does mean something. Where is the tipping point? Impossible to be precise, I believe.</p>
<p>It is also interesting to note that when you look at the scores up close, they do not follow a perfect bell curve.
Take a look at :
<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/SAT-Critical-Reading-Percentile-Ranks-2009.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
<p>There are more 800s than 790s - and it’s not even close. Now , this does make some sense. I think the only way to get a 790 is to not answer just one question - and I can imagine that such a choice is rare. </p>
<p>There is a bulge at 720 too. And check out the bottom as well - a 200 is more common than most other scores in the 200s. </p>
<p>I don’t think this is hugely important, but it does point out that the SATs are not a perfect bell curve (as is the case with a lot of real life data…)</p>
<p>Yes, it does seem reasonable that the SAT is blunter today. I would agree with that.</p>
<p>I would just like to point out, it is a rumor (can anyone confirm if its true?) that taking the SAT is a negative in admissions. And I don’t think that very many people take it more than three times. I would bet most take it once or twice, maaaybe three times.</p>
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<p>No, 2 questions wrong is generally an 800. From 3/2005 to 10/2009 there was one test where 2 questions wrong got a 790. There were 8 tests (out of 15) where 790 wasn’t even possible.</p>
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<p>This is just a guess (I’m sure the College Board has this somewhere), but I assume the average is just under two. </p>
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<p>What do you mean?</p>
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<p>On the last two administrations, this was not the case (the curve was less liberal). With respect to older tests, however, you are correct.</p>
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Definitely. Trust me, had the curve been normal, I would have a composite 50 points higher.</p>
<p>Re: posting 308
Actually, on at least one recent SAT, 1 question wrong in some sections was a 770 - so for that sitting, I presume that skipping one would be 790. It definitely varies a bit. But my point was really just that the curve is not perfectly smooth. (Admittedly, one could argue that anything with a merely finite set of points is not perfectly smooth, but I imagine you all get my drift.)</p>
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<p>ThisCouldBeHeavn and I were referring to the Critical Reading question, on which -1 has never resulted in 770. Also, missing a question and skipping a question always result in the same score.</p>
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<p>Let me ask you this. </p>
<p>You haven’t posted your SAT score, but lets assume for purposes of argument that it is 2300 or less – and lets also hang on to the assumption that you won’t have another opportunity to take the SAT until December.</p>
<p>Suppose an ad com is comparing your application to a white (non hispanic) student who has the opportunity to retake the test in October, and scores +70 points above you. </p>
<p>Everything else being equal, do you think the ad com should select the other student, since they have a higher SAT score? What if it turns out that the other student also took the test in spring of junior year, and scored less than you the first time around? Should the ad com still look at their higher score – despite the fact that it is a senior year retest while yours is a junior year score?</p>
<p>What about your feeling that your composite is less than it would have been on a different administration because of a stricter than typical curve. (“Trust me, had the curve been normal, I would have a composite 50 points higher.”)</p>
<p>I’m not trying to give you a bad time – I’m trying to point out some of the considerations that can come into play when an ad com is looking at your score. </p>
<p>I still contend that it makes more sense for them to use minimum scores as a threshold, and focus on different factors for all students above that threshold – and reported score ranges for Ivies lead me to include that threshold for each test is 600 points (or possibly slightly under that) – though I have no information as to what it might be for a combined score. (But the highest possible combined score for a student with 600 on one test would be 2200, and it is unlikely that there are all that many students with a 600-800-800 – so my conjecture is that the lower combined threshold is more like 1950). </p>
<p>Setting a minimum threshold screens out students who seem unable to do the work, but leaves them with a large pool of students that they can choose from, and fulfill all their various institutional needs – such as achieving diversity, filling their athletic teams, insuring a reasonable balance among math/science and humanities/liberal arts oriented students, etc. </p>
<p>Every college SAYS they view the SATs “in context”. To me, “in context” means that they maintain an awareness of the sequence and pattern of test administrations as well as keeping in mind other factors about the student, including the type of school they come from, their academic record, personal history, etc. </p>
<p>And it would mean that the college should NOT penalize you because you didn’t take SAT prep courses and can’t fit in another test administration until December next year – even though other students who have taken the test more often and received specialized tutoring to prepare for the test may have higher scores to submit. Because whether or not you can fit in another test session – and whether or not the curve was tougher than usual when you sat for the test – you are still the same student. If you manage to score +75 points in December it won’t mean that you are smarter or more capable… so why should the ad com penalize you if you don’t find the time to take the test again… or if you sign up for the test, but come down with the flu the week before the test, and end up scoring 100 points lower?</p>
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Omitting 1 and erring on 1 question always produce the same raw score.</p>
<p>Well, if they went to my school, had the same rank and took the same classes, and also had the exact same extra-curriculars, then I would say pick them, because they managed to score higher than me in the same context. It isn’t that they’re rejecting me; they’re accepting the other student.It’s not that they wouldn’t be justified in accepting one student who could do well; it’s that they are more justified in accepting the other student.
An analogy to this would be a track race, which allows a pretty objective form of comparison. The winner is whoever finishes first, even if the second place guy would’ve won had he been healthy, or had a better coach, etc. </p>
<p>I get the point you’re trying to make, but I still think a better score generally makes an applicant more qualified than an applicant with a lower score. It’s not the only piece to the puzzle, but it’s not a yes/no question either.</p>
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<p>Yes, calmom brings up merely mitigating factors (and continues to ignore my requests :)).</p>
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<p>With a statement like that, I don’t think you really understand what colleges want or what college is about. If you manage to get accepted to an elite college, you will find that the expectations of academics at college are absolutely nothing like anything on the SAT test. You typically won’t have multiple choice tests; you will be expected to produce sustained, in-depth work. At the top colleges in particular, they are looking for the type of students who themselves are likely to go on to graduate school to study for Ph.D’s – and even though many students have other plans, the academic environment is built around that assumption. </p>
<p>The point is – its not a track meet. They absolutely do NOT want one kid over another because one particular kid got lucky and tick off a couple of more boxes on an exam correctly. They have a far more complex agenda to meet. </p>
<p>The SAT is NOT valid as some sort of IQ test nor is a 50 point differential on any one section of the test on a given day particularly meaningful, especially given the fact that some students have more practice through repeat testing and more coaching and tutoring than others. Whatever value it has is only in connection with other data.</p>
<p>I don’t think its any accident that the Ivies tend to report the upper 75% of their class with a 700-800 score range, and the other 25% reaching down to the 500’s (concentrated mostly in the 600-690 range). They could have 90-100% of their students 700 and above if they wanted … but because of the way US News looks at data, they don’t get any added value from the score range of the lower 25% of the distribution tail – so they are going to be very happy to take lower scoring applicants who happen to fill some other institutional need or goal.</p>
<p>Re: ‘superscoring’ - I have no problem with the definition of the term. It’s just the word itself which to my eyes/ears is awkward. WHen I encounter it, also, I reflexively think of ‘superset’ which is nearly the opposite in meaning.
It’s not a big deal in any way.</p>
<p>"they are looking for the type of students who themselves are likely to go on to graduate school to study for Ph.D’s "</p>
<p>I am going to suggest that if at Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, the University President were to be told that in class of 'XX, all grads were going to go on to Phds, and none to law, med, or finance, we would, if not have a heart attack, feel a need to immediately review future financial and strategic plans. :)</p>
<p>I would further suggest that students they admit in the bottom tail of SAT scores are usually NOT the ones they expect to be Phd’s, but the ones they expect to be entrepreneurs, business leaders, etc, etc.</p>
<p>RE: posting 314 by hahalolk
But , really , there are never two such nearly identical students. ECs/gender/essays/background/interview/etc will all be different.
And as to the track race - yes - the winner is the winner, and we all know (particularly if you have ever actually spent time and money at a race track) that a day can make a huge difference.
But schools aren’t looking for the high scorer on a given day. They want whole people.
They look at the whole student. More later…but it’s dinner time here…</p>
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Of course. I’ve never disagreed with that. My main point is that a higher SAT score is simply better.</p>